FLASHBACK-- Palm Springs 2016 Part 3

The email from my trip to Palm Springs in February 2016 continues...



The next morning (Day 2) had me waking up early. I had slept on the hide-a-bed mattress from inside the couch. spread out on the floor (photo below).  Erich and Irene had shared the bed in the bedroom.

We started off the day heading for the Annenberg (sp?) Estate...but when we got there, we discovered it had been closed for some time  for renovations and was due to re-open...after we left. Swell. Needing breakfast, we stopped at a place called Elmer's.

After breakfast, we went back across town to the Palm Springs Visitor Center, which is housed in a former gas station that was built in the mid-century modern style Palm Springs is noted for. As we approached, Irene saw the sign for the aerial tram. We had already been on it during our previous visit---and we didn't have the time or money (or clothes---it would have been cold up there) to make a trip this visit.

Following the visitor's center, we went to what Life magazine dubbed "The Home of Tomorrow", which is better known to tourist trap aficionados as Elvis' Honeymoon Hideaway! This mid-century modern home was rented by Elvis for only a year (although he later owned another house in Palm Springs, in which he lived off and on for years). He was going to marry Priscilla here, but at the last minute, gossip columnist Rona Barrett put 2 and 2 together and reported on the plan. So the Palm Springs marriage never happened. The couple flew to Las Vegas and were wed there...but honeymooned here and stayed for a whole year (while Elvis made movies in Hollywood).  Of course all of the Elvis stuff was added in later for the tourists. I'm not so much an Elvis fan, but I did want to see this tacky tourist gem...and I also wanted to just see the house as well. (and it's right around the block from the house Marilyn Monroe owned).The Elvis Honeymoon Hideaway house is for sale ($7 million, I heard), so once it sells, the tours will likely come to a screeching halt! It was now or never.

Here is (supposedly) Elvis' wedding ring...and the kitchen with the very first "island" built in, which includes a barbecue pit!

Elvis has been called the King of Rock & Roll. Here was his throne:

And here's where the honeymoon happened! OH MY STARS!!!!

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After the Elvis house and dropping Irene off, Erich and I visited the SHAG store, home of one of my favorite contemporary artists SHAG! It was fun to just look as I didn't have thousands to spend on SHAG-wear for my home. His work is groovy. It's usually mid-60s hip, mid-century modern homes, cocktail parties and tiki...always a party and always fun times.

Before dinner, Irene and Erich wanted to stop at the boutique hotel, the Avalon, for a drink (or two). Erich, of course, was back to his old self--hiding his face.

Irene, on the other hand, is anything but shy when it comes to photos. Here she is in all-out selfie mode. I am in no way, shape, or form saying that Irene is self-absorbed. However, i don't think she took a single photo the entire trip that she was not in. (Actually, she is working on some project that requires lots of selfies/pictures of her/etc.)

After cocktails, we went to Melvyn's, which many people told us was classic, old school Palm Springs and not to be missed. It has a strict dress code--business casual.

When we were seated, we were taken through the small main dining room (where very elegant men and women were dining in the subdued lighting) and then steered towards what looked like an enclosed patio section on the side with lots of fake plastic greenery dangling from the ceiling. Irene said it reminded her of Olive Garden and I must confess that it did remind me of that too. Almost as soon as we were seated, I realized that what had happened to us in New Orleans for my birthday dinner had happened at Melvyn's. We had been clearly (and terribly delicately) segregated from the main dining room and it's fine patrons to the add-on room for the riffraff!. While I found that rather funny in a way, Erich and Irene took that as their cue to have a rather crass conversation, which I am sure the wait staff over heard. Oh well. We did top off dinner (I'd had the lobster pot pie---it was huge, but "just okay". I think my expectations for it were just too lofty for the actual item to be what I wanted it to be.) with dessert. Melvyn's can do flambe items---they have been grandfathered in to the current fire code---so we had the Cherries Jubilee! That was sort of fun, but I hear the crepes suzette would have been a better choice. Hmm.

Erich and Irene were pretty done after Melvyn's...but I still had another tiki bar to scope out. I dropped them off and headed out to find it. Bootlegger Tiki is just off the main strip. The main building is a restaurant/sandwich shop with these cool tiki-like headhunter sculptures  sticking up from poles on the roof. The tiki bar is on the side. I went in and...was totally underwhelmed. It was tiny. It had three small booths and a small bar with 5 bar stools. There was a small secondary bar with 1 folding chair. That's it. I had a drink--eh---and left. It was okay and did have the requisite puffer fish lights...but that's about it. Oh well.

And that was it for Day #2. Stay tuned for the final Palm Springs day.

Cheers!